We are fortunate to have manuals for many of the default aircraft in MSFS provided by their developers, however I believe a great catch-all that could positively impact dozens of aircraft in the sim would be the creation of a walkthrough guide/tutorial for the following avionics suites:
Garmin GNS430 / GNS530
Garmin G1000
Garmin G3000 / G5000
Primus Epic 2
UNS-1
As many aircraft share these five platforms, creating five walkthrough guides that take the user from the preflight stage to an instrument approach would be invaluable. I’m aware that some aircraft will use these differently, but I believe that part of something is better than all of nothing.
I understand the developer of these addons took great care to model the real-world systems in the ways that would most impact the sim, and as a result, real world manuals for these systems can be applied in the sim. The issue though is that the manual then contains hundreds of pages of unnecessary/inapplicable information for features not modeled within MSFS. I think this just causes more frustration, not less, for new users trying to learn the systems.
As Jorg made clear during interviews prior to the launch of MSFS 2024, one of the goals with 2024 was to provide users with the tools to be successful and not force them to “figure it out themselves”. This was met, or is at the very least on its way, with improved native flight planning and, for the first time ever, real-world charts. Unfortunately, when it comes to the simulator’s advanced avionics systems, the product falls short.
There are a lot of YouTube videos out there that explain how certain things work, but could easily be eviscerated by a CFI or CFII for inaccuracies. And there are some that do an absolutely fantastic job. The trick is sifting through the noise and incorporating the latter via an in-sim, interactive module.
It’s also difficult to figure out where the in-sim avionics fall short on functionality and how that plays into a realistic world of flying. But the toughest part of implementation that is figuring out who exactly is the audience and presenting it in a way that is comprehensive yet understandable for each user subset.
Either way, this is part of a sorely-needed, wholistic, ground-up reimagining of the lessons/tutorial part of the sim.
Ah, I agree - though for the sake of being attainable, my goal sets the bar a bit lower: I’m simply asking for PDFs as they’ve provided on the Manuals site, not entire in-sim modules.
While that would be great, I don’t see that coming - especially not in this iteration of MSFS.
Yeah, I could see a fairly quick reference guide, especially for VFR use.
IFR gets to be tough because all the intricate functionality is there for a reason. And it’s one of those things - you gloss over it and it causes someone to “crash” (in the sim), you’ve done a major disservice. I think that’s where I was going with that.
For IFR, knowing the avionics fully is so important that I’d almost just send someone right to the real Garmin manual. But really understanding and applying the knowledge gleaned from that also requires the other foundational blocks of instrument flying - basic attitude flying, navigation, and procedures. Which comes back to why I feel like it needs a comprehensive model to be truly effective.
But yes, it wouldn’t hurt to have a quick reference, provided by the sim, especially considering the differences in functionality.
They have complete IFR walkthrough flights for the 747, 787, A320, A321, A330, and a few others - I think the same thing but reduced to only the avionics would go a long way.
And the issue with reading the Garmin manual is that A) it’s large enough to deter most users, especially the ones who need guidance the most, and B) will include loads of things that don’t even work in the sim, so it could cause more damage than do good.
I learned pretty much every avionics system out there though YouTube (Kip, Emi, Filbert, Corporate Pilot Dad, etc..). Many of those are several years old and the systems have been updated since then. While they’re still probably 80-90% accurate, an updated, concise .PDF for reference would be great.
Yep, and simply trying to target Jorg’s goals of not forcing users outside of the sim to learn how to use the sim (extending that to the sim’s website, in this case).
Yeah, that’s the crux of the problem I was trying to illustrate - it’s ultimately the most useful singular document, but way over people’s heads who haven’t been exposed to the full rigamarole of IFR flying. Regardless, it’s fairly required reading for that kind of operation, but as you said, there are quite a few differences. And it’s outside the sim, which you also pointed out is outside the goal.
have you got time to read through 100’s of pages - in addition they are for the real world craft, many of the functions simmers do not use and so it is slightly different.